It’s hard to believe that October is here and my race is in less than a month. I can remember just thinking about it as something that I wanted to just do, now it’s coming to pass. I’m looking forward to it, but I don’t think I’ve reached the point of excitement just quite yet. I’m excited ~ but not crazy excited.

One of the neat things about running this race is I am “meeting” different runners through Instagram who are running the same race. I get to see their progress and the different types of training they’re doing to get ready. Even funnier there is this one gal I follow and she is from Dublin and she will be traveling to run the NYC marathon on November 5th. I’m going to Ireland and she is coming to NYC. She is doing really well with her training and looks fabulous. It’s fun, almost like an electronic pen pal. If you want to follow me on Instagram, it’s #11315miles.

It’s also been fun watching my running friends complete their marathons. I love the bib tracking. It’s almost like being there watching the race. You can get notifications sent to your phone so even if you can’t “be” there physically, you can spiritually! Lots of fun and I would suggest doing it to show your runner support.

This weeks training was fairly decent. I’m on schedule and I can really feel myself getting stronger as a runner. In other words the training is paying off. I feel I could be a little bit stronger. The training this time around has proven to be a little more difficult than in the past. As I typed that sentence I was like…uh what? Yeah, sometimes you don’t see the results you hoped. Or maybe it’s the dreaded “A” word. Never! I refuse to say it’s age! One thing for certain is it was just harder this time around.

The shorter runs were really good this week. I had a steady pace around 11:21 and my breathing felt strong with no stopping. This week’s long run called for 18 miles. The first half of the run was really, really good. I didn’t stop for a break and ran straight through for 12 before I started slowing down. It’s funny to see the metrics on my Garmin because it shows where it went to crap. What did me in was the foot pain. This time both feet. Foot pain led to sporadic breathing that led to some upper back pain. I would have to double over a bit every now and then just to stretch the back out. I bet some people driving thought I was nuts. It’s the damn shoes,so I bought new ones today. Definitely its own blog post. My arches were hurting so bad that I just couldn’t wait to sit down and rub them and get some relief. I wasn’t going to be denied any miles so I kept on going. I completed 18 miles with an average pace of 13:26. Not sexy, but I did finish and that means more than my pace…at the moment. One more long run then the taper begins! Which means no more really long runs until the actual marathon. I feel I need to have a taper party!! I finished 32.66 for the week bringing the monthly total to 132.72 miles. I have 6445.39 miles left on my mileage journey and I’m “feelin good”. Happy Miles to You!!